


Something Stopped, Something Started

by InterstellarMage



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:45:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarMage/pseuds/InterstellarMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I stopped. Something inside me stopped anyway. And then it started itself again. That was the weird thing I felt. I became unmistakably aware my gloved hands were heavy and wet with something that wasn’t rain. It was a deep red.</p>
<p>Permanently unfinished, Sorry. :[</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Stopped, Something Started

**Author's Note:**

> In game, No. 36 is referred to as "Mr." by his good friend No. 56, so he will receive he/his pronouns during this fiction. However I headcanon most Black Mages as Gender neutral by default, so in cases like No. 56, expect singular they/them/their pronouns.

I remember walking. No, it was marching, we were marching wide paths on etched stone streets. There was a lot of that as far back as I could remember. A lot of sifting through buildings, then sifting through wreckage, then sifting through bodies. Because they told us to? Yes, that’s right. Told us to find survivors.

But today I felt something weird. Somehow a thought that had been bubbling in the back of my mind for so long came to form fully and wholly. As clear as a Gizamaluke bell. I thought to myself quietly, “I don’t remember seeing any survivors who didn’t stop moving. Who didn’t just, _stop._ ”

I stopped. Something inside me stopped anyway. And then it started itself again. That was the weird thing I felt. I became unmistakably aware my gloved hands were heavy and wet with something that wasn’t rain. It was a deep red.

The steepled hats just kept marching along in rows when I felt like all the mist was sucked out of my lungs. I stumbled and dropped backward onto the ground. I could’ve caught my breath then, but instead I realized I was confused to be surrounded by a sea of unmoving bodies.

A spearmaiden was had been slain on my left, her body limp and charred, but her clawed hand made a mimicry of motion as it curled tight and poised around a staff, and yet, still. Her children lay just as quiet behind her. But one of those children had eyes that were trembling as they looked into mine. His blood ran into the sewers from the mangled and torn form of his body while I watched the light in his eyes fade and whiskers cease to twitch.

If I had caught my breath, I may have screamed. I didn’t know what all of this meant, but something in me knew it was bad. I felt feet that were too heavy trip on each other as I barreled past decimated homes and careened into crumbling walls enough to feel my shoulders begin to ache. 

I stopped only when I fell over the prone figure of another black mage, curled into themself. I was terrified to think they too had stopped when yellow eyes opened wide and they pleaded in a quiet voice, “Don’t take me back, I don’t want to do it anymore.”


End file.
